Joys Of Home Inspection

OK, you're ready to sell your home. You did everything by the book: you painted, cleaned, sorted, de-cluttered, pruned, and scaled down. You cleared the surfaces, washed the windows, cleaned the curtains. You got a termite inspection. Heeding the wise columnist's advice, you interviewed three local agents, asked them all the right questions, selected one and decided on an asking price. You are primed and ready to roar. Right?

Well, Maybe.

How is this for an idea: Invite a professional home inspector to come through your home. The sole purpose of his life during the three hours he spends in your home is to identify every defect he can find. He then writes it up and packages it in a neat little binder, so you can disclose it to all your potential buyers. For this privilege, you get to pay $275-$400. Sound like a pretty good deal?

The theory is that pre-sale inspections best serve the interests of all parties, but particularly those of the seller. How is this possible? Here is why:

• Fewer surprises: If a buyer knows most or all defects up front, the defects take on their proper perspective. If the buyer is the one who discovers the defect during inspections, that defect takes on ominous proportions and suggests a plethora of unseen horrors. He wonders, "What else has not been disclosed that I haven't discovered?"
• Fewer renegotiations: If a buyer is not aware of a defect prior to making the offer, quite naturally the tendency is to renegotiate the price once the defect becomes known. With prior knowledge, he should have already taken the defect into consideration. If not, he has little leverage for renegotiating.
• Helps fair pricing: Prior knowledge of defects helps the seller to determine a realistic asking price in the first place. If the asking price reflects the true condition of the property, buyers are more likely to complete the sale as originally contracted.
• Less litigation: Problems disclosed up front defuse future litigation. If litigation should occur, the seller has a better defense.
• Higher sales price: Yes, you read that right. Prior knowledge of defects leads to a higher, not lower sales price. When the buyer knows about defects, he feels more comfortable. He knows what he is buying and does not "hold back" for unexpected problems.
• Seller has more leverage: The sellers strongest point of leverage is at the time the buyer first presents an offer. This is particularly true in a hot sellers market. When there is renegotiation during the escrow, the buyer has more leverage. At that point the seller is already mentally set for a sale. He is more inclined to give concessions to avoid the risk of having the house come back on the market.
• Seller controls options: If seller has prior knowledge of a defect, the seller can choose to: 1) ignore it, offer the house "as is" with the defect in tact; 2) repair it, either with his own hands or with a contractor of his choice or 3) downgrade, he can, for example, remove the old deck altogether rather than repair it.
• Screens disqualified buyers: If the buyer is the kind who doesn't want a home near an underground creek, better disclose the creek up front and let him pass.

Obviously, pre-inspections do not circumvent the need for a buyer to conduct his own investigation. The buyer should still hire his own professionals and come to his own conclusions. The existence of a presale inspection, however, should at least touch on most areas of concern which would be discovered with the buyers inspection. The more advanced knowledge the buyer has, the less likely the buyer will turn and run somewhere down the road.